by Richard
“For me, the bear was a noun, the subject of a sentence; for them, it was a verb”
Our last group discussion prompted some reflection on different types of awareness. In my own case, I tend to have a narrow focus on technical tasks for most of the day. This may be a fairly typical pattern in our Western world, but not always in other cultures.
I remember a story by the late American author Barry Lopez, in his book Horizon about remote parts of the world. While travelling with indigenous people in the Arctic, there would occasionally be encounters with a wild bear, and he was struck by differences in his own perception to those of his guides:
“I would tend to focus almost entirely on the bear. My companions would focus on the part of the world of which, at that moment, the bear was only a fragment.
The bear in this case might be compared with a bonfire, a kind of incandescence that throws light on everything around it. My companions would glance off into the outer reaches of that light, then look back to the fire, back and forth. They would repeatedly situate the smaller thing within the larger thing, back and forth. As they noticed trace odors in the air, or listened for birdsong or the sound of brittle brush rattling, they in effect extended the moment of encounter with the bear backward and forward in time…
Their framework for the phenomenon, one that I might later shorten to just “meeting the bear” was more voluminous than mine”
This reminds me of a talk by Alan Watts about there being two types of awareness: one as a spotlight, like concentrative meditative practices such as focussing on a candle or word. The other as a floodlight, which is a softer and broader awareness, like open meditative practices such as Shikantaza.
To be honest, if I were ever to encounter a bear in the woods, I would be very afraid: the birdsong or brittle brush would hardly come into it. Did the bear see me? What will he do next? How do I get out of here?
The closest to this I’ve experienced, is once while walking outside late one afternoon and encountering a tiger snake by the track. It was a shared moment: we both became aware of each other’s presence and immediately froze, staring at each other in the eye. He looked at me, I looked at him, he at me again. Then it was over: he went on his way, and I’m still here to tell the story.
In those few seconds, it was as though the rest of the world was stopped and had fallen away, all except for the snake’s eyes, and my heart pounding. I’ve later come to understand this type of narrow awareness as being natural in a freeze, fight or flight response.
Sometimes there’s scary things in the woods, and real dangers need to be focussed on. But for the most part in our modern world the threats are only perceived or imagined, yet similar responses still occur. For example, I have noticed when people experience frustration or interpersonal conflict, they tend to have a sort of intense focus upon the other person.
This came to mind last year while attending a training course by a visiting professor who’s an expert on work team relations. She mentioned that generally, it’s better to understand issues as being less about the other person, and more about the situation that they’re in.
“The event I was cataloging in my mind as “encounter with a tundra grizzly,” they were experiencing as an immersion in the current of a river. They were swimming in it, feeling its pull, noting the temperature of the water, the back eddies, and where the side streams entered… Also, unlike me, they felt no immediate need to resolve it into meaning. Their approach was to let it continue to unfold. To notice everything and to let whatever significance was there emerge in its own time.“
For me, this kind of wider awareness strongly resonates with our practice: nothing exists separately from its context. But of course, this way of “meeting the bear” is much easier said than done. I find the work of practice becomes important whenever there’s a bear in the woods: where is it? what is it?